


Invasion of the Brightlands

by RadAceFriend



Category: Yogscast
Genre: AU, Blood, Death, Fighting, Gen, Scars, Violence, hallucinations (kind of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 06:20:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10961475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RadAceFriend/pseuds/RadAceFriend
Summary: With the recent Blackrock reveal, I decided to wonder what might have happened if Rythian hadn't left the End and had instead became the warlord he was meant to be. This is the result.





	Invasion of the Brightlands

It was, Rythian decided, far too late to be having second thoughts. The armies of the End were gathered, legions arranged before the bedrock frame of the portal. Stars were flying through it, the orbit of a dimension around the slip of Void at its centre. On the top of the frame was the Queen, glorious and immortal, the shine of the endstone gleaming off the edges of her scales, healing pulses of energy roiling through her as she used her power to draw open the way through to the Brightlands.

At the front of the army was Rythian, a warlord made to conquer. The cold heart of an icy star burned in his chest, furious magic carefully guided to kill and hurt and maim, ready to unleash the horror of the End upon the creatures that lived with air and light and water. His twin swords were sheathed at his waist, one of metal and one of glass, eyes of ender set into their pommels, their gaze enough to paralyse.

The scars on his cheeks itched, the angular marks pulling from his mouth to create the effect of the same gaping maw as the endermen. The sensation crawled along him until it was in his arms and hands, his fingers twitching with excess energy, longing for the feeling of blood sliding off them as he danced to the song of battle. He watched the Queen, waiting for her signal that the portal was safe.

The army waited, watching with relentless intensity. They watched as the crack in the world took on depth, as it deepened until there was a way into every dimension by simply touching one of the stars. And in the deepest depths of the portal, the brightest star winked with sunlight.

The Queen raised her head, her roar echoing over the landscape of the End. It was her command, her signal, and Rythian ran, the army behind him, and they leapt through the portal, the fabric of space warping around them as they hurtled towards that far off speck.

As Rythian moved, his hands drew his swords, drawing them together into an 'X', the blades crossed, edges touching, the swords making music. The magic in him swelled, filling his limbs with strength, his bones with magic, until the very matter of him began to glow with power. He touched that light, the one furthest from the End, and burst through into the Brightlands, the legions of the End behind him.

As one they screamed, static hissing on their voices, long limbs reaching, skin cold enough to frost up the ground and burn the fragile skin of the people that greeted them.

Rythian swung his swords out, his power rippling from them to stop the hearts of the people, reforming them into a cross again to show the eyes to any he had missed, paralysing them for the armies to kill. The first kills done, he pushed himself from the ground, leaping into the air until he was higher than the mountains, held there by his power. He directed himself towards the high spires of a distant tower, falling with control, sending magic to his legs again to keep them strong enough to survive the impact. He jumped again, going miles each time, endermen teleporting in jolting motions behind him.

He landed at the next village, and killed. He did the same to the next, and the next, jumping across the globe. Where he landed, no humans survived, and when he left, he did not look at the bodies. He took off, searching for the next village, the next city, the next cluster of humans. It took only weeks for the End to conquer a world, and Rythian was moving faster than any warlord before him.

Rythian crashed to the ground, landing in a whirling motion to bare the eyes in his swords, viewing those assembled before him. They must have seen his approach, because a small army was assembled, the population of a town with those who lived close by. None of them were the same, skin tones painted across them and glittering gemstones for eyes. They looked, Rythian realised, like him, and for a moment the old questions about his differences came back. Then the army appeared at his back, purple sparks dusting across the ground, and he knew his place, knew who his people were.

He made the first attack, striking outwards with his twin swords, the blades ringing together to make music, the points crashing through the raised diamond sword that had been going to block, shattering the iron chestplate, sinking the blades deep into the man's chest, his momentum taking him so far that the hilts of his blades began to press into the skin of his victim. Rythian felt the blood run over his hands and was gone, dancing to the music his swords made, the cold star inside him filling him with power. His blades flashed, glass and metal ringing with the sound of blood and battle. This was battle, what he had been raised for, the place where he could live and move forever in the dance, the place where he was glorious and immortal as the Queen he served.

He noticed the way his magic condensed first, like a blanket had been thrown over it and warmed it, making it alien and unusable in his veins. The knife in his back was second, and he could feel the bright red blood falling. As he turned, his scars itched, and he set eyes on a woman, her hair as red as the blood on her hands.

She was almost familiar, as though he knew her from another life. She had thrown a blanket over the world, made the magic in his veins stop, made him forget how to dance to the music of the fight. It felt so wrong to him that he made it stop in the only way he knew how. The eye glared in his glass sword as light flashed off it, swinging in an arc that ended with the breaking of the warm heart in her chest. Her eyes widened as the pain hit her, as blood ran down the blade, as her blanket lifted from the world.

His magic began to push the blade from him, healing as it went, but it was imperfect and wrong, a scar forming from the very centre of his chest. He couldn't go fast enough, and he felt himself dying, he could no longer feel the coldness in his veins the way he should, he was no longer himself, he was dying.

_Rythian!_ He heard. _Rythian, come see the portal!_

"Mama?" There was a woman floating in front of his eyes, with tan skin and bright blue eyes. She was perched on the side of a frame of pale stone, her hand close to touching the surface of a ripped open space in the world. Pushed up above her eyes were goggles filled with purple glass, and she was smiling. "Is that you, Mama?" He felt himself fall, fall as the cold magic that had been pulled from the heart of a star for him left his bones, stopped supporting him.

_We're going on an adventure._ The woman pulled him close, the scent of chemicals on her black lab coat as she guided his hands to turn knobs and dials on a device, his skin soft against the calluses on her palms. _We're going to go somewhere that no-one has ever been before. It's going to be so much fun._ She pulled her goggles over her eyes, then guided a pair over his own. His eyes beheld the portal, and it was alive with the energies of the world. The woman knelt down in front of him so that they were level with each other. _This might not be nice to go through, but be brave for me, okay?_ They held hands as they were sucked through the portal, but it separated them, ripped her hand from his.

"Mama!" He called, still holding the object her had given him, his fingers turning the dials and staring at the screen. "Mama, where did you go?" He walked across the empty and barren landscape, searching for any sign of her. He saw nothing, and eventually his young mind began to forget.

"Mama?" But she wasn't there, only the red haired woman who had killed him. He lay on the ground, his hands still clutching his swords. They were singing now, the blades touching. But they weren't singing of battle now, they were mourning, and the eyes were less green and closer to blue. "Mama, is that you?"

He saw the woman who had killed him, and she had a golden crown on her head as she lay, blood oozing from the hole in her chest. She was saying something but he couldn't hear over his singing swords, and he closed his eyes to their song, half remembering the sound of laughter and the smell of a black lab coat he used to wear in the evenings.


End file.
